


Floriography

by solomonara



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Don't copy to another site, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, jason todd was never robin, meta jason todd, some light drugging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-08-11 11:48:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20153095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solomonara/pseuds/solomonara
Summary: There's a new player in Bludhaven. He calls himself Nightshade and he's complicating what Dick thought was going to be a fairly straightforward case. Dick has no idea what he did to deserve his very own Poison Ivy, but it must have been bad for all the trouble Nightshade is causing. Or then again, maybe it was very, very good…





	1. Prelude & Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hayashi_Jazmin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hayashi_Jazmin/gifts).

> Written for the 2019 JayDick Summer Exchange! Hayashi_Jazmin gave me some wonderful prompts to choose from. I had a really hard time deciding which one to fill! I hope you like it <3
> 
> Thanks to the wonderful exchange mods for making this a delightful experience, and thank you to [DragonSorceress22](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonSorceress22/) and [DragonflyXParodies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonflyxParodies) for being very patient while I fretted about tense and flow.

_Prelude_

Ask any hero you care to name, and they will have an opinion on fate. It is the sort of thing that heroes think about.

Some know fate personally, or think they do. They know a shining helm, a goddess, a sentient force that can be reasoned with.

Others refuse to believe in it at all. It is the only way they can live their lives.

And many – paragons beyond reproach, grey-area ciphers, and yes, even those the world has marked outright villains – lie awake at night with the question, letting it turn their pillows to stone, their bedclothes to fire, the familiar darkness to unfriendly eyes. They worry about lives saved or lost, disasters unaverted, an endless litany of _could, if, _and _should have_.

Here is a secret: Fate exists.

Here is another secret: It does not care about being thwarted.

Not when it comes to the little things.

In a thousand, thousand universes, pearls will catch the light as they fall to the puddled ground in an alley. Ropes will fray and snap above a sea of helpless, horrified onlookers. These are the big moments, the ones that would require a very large stone in the stream of reality to divert.

For Jason Peter Todd, however, all it took was a single tiny plant falling into the current and whirling away. For this, fate blinked. And the river moved.

**Chapter 1**

The world might not know it, but Nightwing was a very good detective. They saw the aerial acrobatics, they heard the quips and jokes, and some of them (a growing number of them, in fact, at least here in Bludhaven) had seen first-hand how he could fight.

No one ever saw the paperwork.

At that precise moment in time, Nightwing was kind of wishing he also couldn't see the paperwork. Haven Pharmaceuticals' records were a snarled mess of shell corporations, cooked books, and an inconveniently high number of vaguely named entities. And somewhere in there was proof that Haven Pharm was adding a little something extra to their products that they really, _really _shouldn't be. Something that made ordinary people start exhibiting side-effects like homicidal rage and a sudden increase in muscle mass.

Nightwing clicked and scrolled through it all, rubbing the middle fingers of his right hand absently against his lips as he did so. It was a thinking gesture and a soothing one, a tic he'd developed at age eleven and never kicked. He could practically hear B in his head lecturing him on the inadvisability of physical tells, and the even bigger inadvisability of drawing attention to those tells by painting a bright blue stripe down his arms and the fingers in question.

He lowered his hand and sighed. He was going to have to copy everything and take it home. He _hated _homework, but he couldn't peruse all of this in one night, not if he hoped to understand it. He pulled out a thumb drive and got to cloning.

It took half an hour even with the advanced tech he had at his disposal, courtesy of Oracle. When it was done Nightwing made sure he'd left no trace and was about to escape back to the dubiously fresh air of Bludhaven's skyline when, all around him, alarms blared to sudden and unexpected life.

He didn't stop to question, he just ran: out of the server room where he'd been doing his digging, down the hall, darting for the stairs that would take him up to floors above ground that had doors and windows.

He burst through the stairwell door and collided with another body.

_Already? Since when is security so fast_? he wondered. Then he realized that this person had been sprinting up from the next lowest level and seemed just as surprised to run into Nightwing as Nightwing had been to run into him.

Both jumped back, Nightwing drawing his escrima sticks and the other guy dropping into a hand-to-hand stance.

Nightwing took in his appearance at a glance: his face was hidden in the shadows of a deep hood. The hood was attached to a vest that looked heavy enough to be armored. It was a purple so dark that it could have been taken for black if it wasn't next to the rest of his outfit. His arms were bare but for wrappings around his fists and forearms that looked like vines.

The clothing under the vest was black, sleeveless, and so close-fitting it might have been painted on. His pants were well-fitted, too, but loose enough to move easily in and with plenty of pockets, and more thick vines curling around his thighs and waist like holsters. Nightwing half expected his boots to be laced with greenery, but no: they were simply heavy-duty combat boots that looked like they meant business. Meta? Really enthusiastic gardener? He supposed he’d find out.

Nightwing's evaluation was split-second, but still, it was odd that the guy hadn't moved and didn't seem inclined to. "Are we gonna fight or nah?" Nightwing asked.

The hood cocked. "Nah is an option?"

"Yeah, I'm in kind of a hurry here. Wait – you set off the alarms?"

"Maybe?"

_Ah, damn._ "Were you doing something illegal?" _Please say no, I do not have time._

The guy straightened and folded his arms. The vines twined into a more comfortable position, apparently of their own accord. "Were you?"

"Fair enough," Nightwing said, eyeing the greenery. New vigilante or new villain? Figure it out in a less compromising position. "We'll talk," he promised. Then he shot a line up the middle of the stairwell and took off.

Mere minutes later, Nightwing was settled on a convenient rooftop a few buildings away – one that offered enough cover in the form of ductwork and ventilation apparatus that he could watch what was going on at Haven Pharmaceuticals. He wanted to try to figure out what the new player had been up to over there and how badly it was going to interfere in his own investigations.

He didn't expect the chance to hear the answer directly from the source, but soon enough there was a small sound of scuffling toward the back of the building and Nightwing's new friend clambered over the side. He straightened, then froze when he noticed Nightwing noticing him.

"So," Nightwing said, turning from the show of lights and sirens below to give him his full attention. "You gonna run?"

The other man appeared to think it over for a moment. "No."

"Good. What do I call you?"

"Nightshade. I'm new in town."

"Nightshade? Really?"

Nightshade didn't respond.

"I'm going to call you Shade, or this is going to get confusing."

"Do what you want, just stay out of my way."

Nightshade was a few inches taller than Nightwing, and more than a few inches broader. He looked like a brawler, though he apparently wrapped his fists in plants rather than tape. His accent said Gotham. Nightwing made a mental note to check in with the family. The code name… was not promising. "Sure," Nightwing said. "Just as soon as you tell me what you were doing in Haven Pharmaceuticals."

"What's with the third degree? I had as much right to be in there as you."

"I don't think so," Nightwing said. "Bludhaven is my city. Whatever you did in there was sloppy enough to mess with my work and I want assurances it won't happen again."

"Well you're not getting them," Shade said. "My business is my business. You stay out of it if you don't want to get hurt."

"At the risk of sounding petty, I was here first. And frankly, I don't think you know what you're doing."

Shade shrugged. "Guess we'll see." He turned, clearly intending to leave.

"Hey, wait a second," Nightwing said. "If you don't tell me what you were doing in there, I'm going to have to assume we're enemies."

Shade looked back over his shoulder. His face was still hidden by the hood, but a few thin, green tendrils of plants peeked out like stray hairs. "We don't have to be enemies," he said. "But I get the feeling you're not gonna want me for a friend."

Nightwing frowned and took a step toward him, but Shade opened his hands and let fall what looked like several shiny black marbles. Nightwing jumped back as grey-blue smoke erupted. He grabbed his rebreather and dove through the smoke screen, but Nightshade was already gone.

Two days later, Haven Pharmaceuticals collapsed into a sinkhole, gone like it never was.


	2. Interlude with Morning Glories

Jason Todd brushed against the hem of fate's robes three times in his life.

The first happened one night when Jason was eight and the leader of one of the local gangs tried to take the money he'd earned acting as messenger boy. That money, paltry sum though it was, had been intended to buy Jason and his mother food for the next three days. Faced with the prospect of having nothing between his teeth in the morning, Jason did the logical thing and bit the man that evening.

There was a fight, which Jason did not see, having been flung against a wall in rage. He missed Batman swooping down on the gang, and he missed the order to Robin to check on the collapsed child in the corner. He missed, too, the gentle brush of Robin's fingers pushing the hair away from his forehead to check the growing lump there.

What he did not miss was this:

Consciousness fading back into focus, and the yellow light of an overhead street lamp shuttering in and out as he blinked once, twice, three times. A silhouetted form leaning over him, whited-out eyes wide and mouth a darker O of shock in the shadow of its face.

It felt like ages, but it took less than a second for Jason to recognize that the person whose hand was hovering over his face was Robin. Robin meant Batman. Batman, who hunted criminals, and Jason had run messages for _gangs_.

He bolted, twisting away from Robin with the fluid impossibility of a cat. He knew the narrow places between buildings where no adult could follow; he had to hope Robin, though a child, would be similarly hampered. To be safe, though, when he couldn't run any more, he wedged himself into the corner of a fire escape landing where someone had planted a few shallow boxes of morning glories. The vines made an adequate screen, and the boxes left enough space for an underfed child to curl between them and sleep for a few hours before going home, certain in the light of day that he wouldn't lead any unwanted visitors to his mother.

Such are the precautions of a child who has seen more than most at far too few years. They would not have been enough to deter Batman, of course, nor even Robin, young though he was yet. But there was one more thing that Jason missed, having run.

He missed a gang member unexpectedly pulling a gun while Batman's back was turned. Robin, already two steps after Jason, saw it. Robin didn't hesitate; he turned and tackled the gun-wielding man and, in the process, lost Jason.

Dick Grayson will think about that moment many times over the next dozen years while he looks at the fingers of his right hand. He will wonder, over and over again, what happened to the boy.

Jason will think of that night, too, every time he catches his reflection and sees the shock of white amidst the black of his hair. It had been a jarring surprise, the first time he noticed it in the speckled bathroom mirror the morning following his encounter with Robin. He'd raised his fingers to it in an unknowing imitation of the gesture that caused it, and assumed that the white was a result of the blow to the head he'd received.

He was wrong, but he was eight. He didn't know how these things worked. And he would soon have much larger things to worry about than a few hanks of oddly-colored hair.

But that is for later. Each of the moments from this night is significant, but none are life-altering, at least not for Jason. As of this night, save for a few small altered details, the stream of Jason Todd's existence is still on perfect course toward what should be an inevitable destination:

Tires, cape.

Crowbar, grave.

Pit.


	3. Chapter 2

Shade was prowling down an alley in the industrial district when Nightwing caught up with him a few days after Haven Pharmaceuticals had been swallowed by the earth. Luckily, the building had been nearly empty when it had collapsed and the few people who had been in or near it had escaped with relatively minor injuries. Dick had spent the days since then trying to salvage his case against Haven Pharm and researching Shade.

Neither was going particularly well. The Cave didn't have a file on Nightshade, which meant he was new indeed.

Nightwing stalked him from the rooftops for a while until Shade turned down a dead-end alley between a warehouse and a sneaker factory. Shade barely missed a step going from walking to climbing the factory wall. Nightwing stared, then looked closer.

The plants around his arms and the vines around his legs seemed to be helping him find purchase, but a lot of it just seemed to be Shade. With his arms left bare by the costume, Nightwing could see just how hard his muscles were working to pull himself up. He waited until Shade had made it to the roof, waited until he saw him kneel to jimmy a skylight before making his move.

Nightwing leapt to the factory roof, landed on cat feet behind Shade, and tapped him on the shoulder.

Shade lashed out, twisting to slice a hand through the air, but Nightwing had already sprung backward, his escrima sticks ready.

"Hey," Nightwing said. "I've got some more feedback on that name of yours if you want to hear it."

Shade rose to his feet. "I don't want to fight."

"Then stop breaking into places and dropping them into sinkholes."

Shade's hood cocked to the side. "No."

"You're not even going to deny it was you?" Nightwing asked.

"It was me, and they deserved it."

"Deserved what? The huge insurance payout? The extremely plausible excuse for destroying a _lot_ of paper trails?" Nightwing gripped his weapons a little tighter. "You're done, Shade. Come quietly."

"Also no," Shade said. "These idiots fucked up just like Haven Pharm, and they're going to pay just like Haven Pharm and the rest of their buddies. Removing the buildings slows the damage. Next step is killing the roots." His tone left no doubt that only part of that sentence was metaphorical. The vines around his forearms writhed, but he didn't make a move.

Fine. Nightwing much preferred it when his opponents were hot-headed and would do half the work for him, but he could initiate, too. He feinted with one of the sticks and when Shade brought up an arm to block, Nightwing's kick caught him in the side.

He barely stumbled and recovered almost immediately, making a grab for Nightwing.

Nightwing grinned, getting into the rhythm of it. He leapt and ducked and dodged, darting in and out, well aware that a solid hit would slow him down way more than he could afford.

"Hey, so, about that feedback. Did you know that potatoes and tomatoes are technically nightshades?" Nightwing asked, ducking under a punch and spinning out of the way of the follow up. "I'm just saying, you might want to specify."

He almost managed to sweep Shade's legs, but he jumped at the last second. Nightwing nearly got stuck with a handful of thorns Shade produced out of nowhere, but he rolled out of their path.

"Like, maybe add a modifier?" Nightwing went on. "Deadly Nightshade has a nice ring to it. But if you don't like that, apparently nightshade is also known as 'love apple' and—whoops!" Nightwing threw himself to the side as Shade flicked a few more of those shiny black pellets at him. They landed somewhere behind him, but Nightwing was too focused on throwing an escrima stick as he dodged to worry about them. The stick grazed Shade's cheek as he just barely avoided it and his hood fell back.

Nightwing had a moment of abject shock before he recovered. _Not a white streak. That's green. Green and… and leafy. It's not him, _he reassured himself.

The green streak in Shade's hair was tangled through with tiny tendrils of plants. They grew down over his face in a diagonal line, their stems growing woody and rigid as they wove around his eyes and across his cheek, snaking back behind his ears. It was an effective mask.

Nightwing's distraction cost him. The next pellets Shade threw burst before Nightwing could fully slide out of the way and he got a face full of pale purple smoke. It smelled of honeysuckle and was altogether too pleasant to be any sort of attack—

Shade was crouching in front of him and yet was somehow at eye level, which meant Nightwing must have sat down at some point. He blinked heavily at Shade.

"I don't recommend trying to swing anywhere for at least an hour," Shade said. He reached out and ran a thumb along the bottom seam of Nightwing's mask. "Hard to say exactly how long since I can't see your eyes."

Nightwing swayed and shook his head muzzily. He grabbed Shade's wrist, a vague idea that Shade shouldn't be touching him crossing his mind (buried, somewhat, under the slightly sharper idea that Shade smelled _nice_.)

"Hey," Shade said. "None of that." He started to pull his hand away, but the vines twining through his fingers and up his arm suddenly perked up and shot out, wrapping around Nightwing's wrist, tethering him to Shade. "What the fuck? Let go," Slade hissed.

"I'm not holding on," Nightwing said, considering their connected hands with bemused concern.

"Not you," Shade said. He tugged back a little, but the plants twined tighter.

"I think they like me." Nightwing grinned at Shade. A burst of green suddenly traced itself through Shade's hair and down the lines of his mask, new curls of growth swiftly unfurling into small, pale pink flowers that immediately began falling to the ground between him and Nightwing.

Under his mask, the tops of Shade's cheekbones had developed a dusty green color.

"Are you blushing?" Nightwing asked, delighted.

"No. Shut up. Help me figure out how to get loose."

That seemed like a great idea. Nightwing had been just waiting for a suggestion! "I could cut them," he said, reaching for a batarang.

"No!" Shade said, jerking back. The plants suddenly released their grip and Shade leapt away. Nightwing stayed where he was, but picked up one of the flowers Shade had shed. "Is this why you smell so nice?" he asked. Another flurry of blossoms fell and Shade jerked up his hood hastily.

"Okay, look, I'm going to go in there and do what I need to do to make these assholes regret dumping their toxins into the groundwater. You, uh, stay here, all right? Don't go wandering off. You could get hurt."

"That's a weird thing for a villain to say," Nightwing said. "Wait. Wait a minute." He shook his head again, trying to clear it. "You're— Nightshade. This feels… familiar." His hands were moving without his conscious thought, drifting to the emergency compartment in the top of his boot.

"Yeah, that's right, I'm Nightshade, and I'll be right back, okay Wing? Don't give me that look. If you get to call me Shade, I get to call you Wing," Shade said.

Nightwing frowned. Then he plunged the autoinjector he'd pulled from his boot into his thigh. Shade's eyes went wide under his mask.

"What was that? What did you just do?"

Nightwing sucked in a breath. "Sex pollen antidote." He got his feet under him and started the laborious process of standing. "You're with Ivy," he snarled.

"Shit. That wasn't pollen. It's an offshoot, it's not— I don't use that shit. Wing? Are you seriously going to try to fight me like this?"

He was. The antidote worked fast.

There was something wrong, though. Nightwing felt shaky, his movements jerky and a little wild. He didn't feel drugged anymore, but he didn't feel right, either. Shade ducked and dodged a few of his strikes, then shook his head and took off, flinging himself across the divide to the warehouse and vaulting over the edge of the building – probably to climb to the ground. Nightwing took three steps after him before a wave of nausea overtook him and he had to admit he was in no shape for a game of chase.

He wasn't so far gone he couldn't collect evidence, though.

Dick didn't have the full toxicology lab the Cave was equipped with. His set-up was a little more casual (Tim, visiting once, had called it his "My First Poisoning Set"). But then, he also seemed to get drugged a lot less frequently in Bludhaven than he had in Gotham.

He had what he needed to test himself once he made it home, though. It turned out Shade hadn't been lying: it wasn't sex pollen. It was similar enough that the antidote had helped, but different enough that Dick was now reading his results on the floor of his bathroom, stomach churning nauseatingly as his body processed a bad chemical interaction.

He'd collected a few things from the roof of the factory: some of the blossoms Shade had produced and one of the pellets he'd thrown that hadn't burst on impact – which Dick now realized looked just like deadly nightshade berries. At least Shade was committed to the theme.

Dick had tested the pellet, or seed, or berry, or whatever it was very carefully with a gas mask, gloves, and a pair of tweezers in between retching into the toilet. If it was one of the ones with the drug that he'd been hit with, he'd send his analysis of it to the Cave for the records – and so that they could start generating countermeasures.

It turned out just to be a smoke pellet, though, emitting a heavy gray, completely inert smoke identical to the one Nightshade had used to escape that first night.

Dick sighed and turned his attention to the flowers.

They were small, less than an inch across. Each one had five pale pink petals. Most of them looked kind of lopsided. Dick leaned against his tub and started an image search. A bit of scrolling and refining, and he had the answer: a variety of _drosera_, commonly known as sundew. Specifically, he was pretty sure, threadleaf sundew.

It was carnivorous. Because of course it was. It was also native to the area; it could be found in wetlands from Maryland to Massachusetts, and particularly around Gotham. That, coupled with Nightshade's accent, the plant-based powers and similarity of his drugs to Ivy's, convinced Dick he was dealing with a Gotham native. So what had dragged him out to Bludhaven?

Eco-terrorism, clearly. Dick closed his eyes and breathed through his nose, trying to remember exactly what Shade had said tonight. He turned one of the blossoms over and over in his hand, unaware he was still holding it, rubbing the soft petals with the tips of fingers that had been dyed black thirteen years ago.

He realized what he was doing and stopped, dropping the flower. Just because they _seemed_ to be a harmless native plant didn't mean they couldn't hold a nasty surprise. He levered himself up, bagged the flowers, and washed his hands, paying special attention to his marked ring finger and middle finger: black past the top knuckle, both of them, the inky stain fading to nothing before the second joint.

It was a small soul mark, but noticeable, especially for having bloomed so young. Growing up with two fingers permanently dipped in ink had left him open to a lot of jokes, but no more than calling himself _Dick_ had.

He watched the water run over them, seeing in his mind's eye the moment once again. He'd touched the boy's hair and the color had fled from it, leached away so that it looked like the white was chasing the black all the way to the boy's scalp. It had certainly surprised Dick, so much so that when the boy had jerked away and run, Dick had been several steps behind.

Good thing, too, because he _had_ been in the middle of a fight and who knew what might have happened if he hadn't seen that gun. Dick had suspected, then, what had happened but he hadn't confirmed it until he'd pulled the glove off after they'd wrapped up that night. The black of the boy's hair had transferred to his fingers, despite the gauntlet being between them.

He and Bruce had looked, of course, but none of the gang members had any information to offer. The boy just went by "J" and they didn't know where he lived or anything else about him; he was just a kid that buzzed around running errands for a few extra bucks, and after that encounter it seemed he'd given it up.

Dick wondered if the boy had figured out what had happened, if he knew that Robin's touch had caused that mark, and if he was deliberately staying away because of that. If he was scared.

Well, let him hide, if he was even still alive. Dick had moved to Bludhaven, had reinvented himself partially to stop obsessing over it. He flicked the faucet off and scrubbed his hands dry with the towel. He needed to be thinking of the case, not long-lost missed connections.

Still, as night faded into morning, Dick fell asleep curled on his side, his mark near his heart.


	4. Interlude with Marigolds

Fate leaves Jason Todd alone for five years. This is not a kindness. It is not cruelty, either. It simply is.

The stream of Jason's life carries him past the demise of his father, tumbles him through his mother's decline, and dashes him against the rocks of her death.

And here he is, on the streets, with nowhere to go and no one who can help. Catherine Todd had had a mortal fear of Child Protective Services, and she had had no fear of voicing this aloud to Jason. _Don't let on how bad it is, CPS might come. Don't let your teachers see, I can't bear to lose you to CPS. You are my child and I won't let those CPS bastards take you from me._

This was love, as far as Jason knew. And, as far as Jason knew, CPS must be a fate worse than death.

Gotham's streets weren't so bad. He learned which corners had the kind women, and he learned when kindness hid thorns, and he learned to recognize evil in men's eyes before he had to learn it from their hands.

Gotham's alleys were a forest for those who knew how to harvest, and Jason had always been a quick study. And he was quick on his feet, too; that helped when he wasn't the only one who knew which restaurants and stores didn't lock their dumpsters and put the old food out at the same time every night.

Some shop owners would let him do small things in exchange for money, but he had to be careful. If they thought he didn't have a home to go back to, the looming threat of those three letters his mother feared would be brought down on his head.

For a child who grew up with so much to be afraid of, Jason was oddly bold when it came to certain things: things like climbing, and wiggling into small spaces, and exploring areas that looked dangerous. That was how he found his nest.

It wasn't much, but it was a place to stay. It was a scrap of stability in a world where everything had washed out from under him. It was a space between two buildings that had been built around and over so that the only way to get into it was by hopping a wall in a certain alley and knowing where the tiny gap was where two walls met unevenly. Unless you were standing directly in front of it, it was totally invisible from outside.

The hideaway was cold in the winter: the concrete of the surrounding buildings bled the chill like a tangible thing. But it was cool in the summer, and the ground was dirt, and Jason had read in the library that some plants were edible. It would be nice not to have to scrounge or beg until he was old enough that someone might hire him for legitimate work.

Jason did not know much about gardening. He was thirteen and had a vague idea that he would need a lot more resources to actually be able to feed himself consistently, but until then it couldn't hurt to get started.

He stole a marigold from a window box and put it into the hard, cold, perpetually damp, sunless dirt in the corner of his nest. He nibbled on one of the petals one day when the hunger was nibbling at him. It tasted terrible.

He swiped a mint plant from someone's windowsill herb garden. It smelled nicer than the marigold and seemed determined to grow no matter what.

He still cried when the marigold withered and died, and that was the moment Pamela Isley happened to be passing that particular alley. The sound drew her attention to the narrow opening. She could sense a dying plant nearby, but it was one of millions ground down and sapped by the city. None of the others died with a human voice, though.

She peered through the gap and saw a boy in a threadbare red hoodie mourning this simple, doomed plant.

To her, it was a curiosity and no more. Pamela Isley went on her way, and Jason Todd went to sleep hungry as he had for far too many nights in his young life.

It is a small, insignificant moment, and perhaps this is when fate blinks. Or perhaps it is later. Regardless, next year Batman will park his car in Crime Alley, never considering that any denizen of those desperate haunts would dare tamper with it.

And no one would.


	5. Chapter 3

Superintendant Mills of the Bludhaven Wastewater Treatment Facility was a small woman with thick glasses, sensible slacks, and brown hair pulled back into a practical bun. Her facility had, in the past month, leaked a few thousand gallons of Venom-tainted runoff into the ground around the plant. She was directly responsible for hiding this fact from the EPA.

Nightwing knew it. She knew it. And both of them knew Shade knew it. So Nightwing couldn't figure out why she wasn't more concerned about her current situation, which was: cornered in her office at midnight while Nightwing confronted her with two frantic, sleepless nights' worth of research.

"I already know it's not just you. I know Haven Pharm, Blu Shoes, and Holistic Food are in on it. You all use the same legal firm. Give it up."

"You don't know anything," Mills said, leaning easily back in her chair.

Nightwing slammed his hands down on her desk. She jumped a little, but not enough. "If you don't care about what I know, think about what the guy who's been attacking your buddies knows. Or thinks he knows. _He_ doesn't need proof."

It was a little galling; he’d been carefully gathering evidence of one company’s wrongdoings, and then Shade had come tearing through and dropped a whole conspiracy in his lap. Nightwing had finally figured it out when he'd managed to sort through the haze of being drugged and his antidote hangover after their last confrontation: Shade had said "and the rest of their buddies."

It wasn't a lot to go on, barely more than a hunch, but it had paid off. He’d found bribes (funneled through their lawyers so that everything looked legitimate) buying off the supposedly EPA-authorized auditing firm. The firm then looked the other way while suspect toxins were disposed of in a _decidedly_ noncompliant manner.

"And what do you think would happen to me the moment my colleagues thought I was turning coat?" Mills inspected her fingernails. "None of us got where we are without connections, Mr. Wing. And not the savory kind."

"Come on. You have to be worried. No amount of unsavory connections will save you from being swallowed by a giant Venus flytrap or whatever he decides to do next."

Shade had proven more competent than Nightwing had given him credit for. While Nightwing had been investigating, Shade had managed to burn Blu Shoes to the ground, and he'd left a toxic gift in the ventilation system at Holistic Food Labs, LLC, the third arm of the conspiracy. No one had been killed yet, but Nightwing attributed that more to luck than any circumspection on Shade’s part.

The companies were insured, of course, and might shrug off such accidents under different circumstances, but they’d have to be idiots not to realize that they were being deliberately targeted. They'd battened down the hatches and called a meeting. In three days, they'd all be together in one place and Nightwing would bet that was exactly what Shade had been waiting for.

So he had three days to take care of this before Shade did. Which brought him here, on far too little sleep and with far too much haste, to the scenic Bludhaven Wastewater Treatment Facility. Arm number four, the only place Shade hadn't hit yet.

"I will take my chances," Mills said.

"Then this is your last one. Come with me, enter protective custody. I'll make sure he doesn't get to you."

Mills smiled in a way that made the back of Nightwing's neck prickle. "How are you going to do that when you can't even protect yourself?"

The window behind Mills' desk glinted and Nightwing was ducking and rolling before he'd fully registered the laser site. The glass shattered and drywall burst into a haze behind where he'd been a moment ago. _Sniper? She's a freaking public works official! _his brain protested.

The door to the office slammed open and suddenly there were more jackboots and kevlar vests in the room than Nightwing had thought possible. At least that would make it too risky for the sniper to open fire again, or so he hoped. He evaded the newcomers' grasping hands, vaulted over the desk and hauled the blinds closed as he swung past, kicked off the wall, and launched himself to the top of a bookshelf.

Oh dear, not anchored to the wall. Not up to code at all. It tilted, landing full on the goons who were near it. There were definitely too many of them in the office for them to get out of the way, and that only benefited Nightwing.

Mills had ducked into the footwell of her desk and was calmly texting as things went to hell around her. Nightwing found himself in the agreeable position of having targets wherever he struck, while the rest of the crowd was far more likely to hit an ally than they were him. Still, he'd prefer to wrap this up.

He slid through the grip of an enterprising minion and over the desk, landing in a crouch on the other side to drag Mills out by the collar of her sensible shirt.

"I think you'll all be wanting to back off right about now," he growled at them, hauling her up by the arm.

"Don't listen to him," Mills said. "He's not going to hurt me."

"Lady, you are _really_ trying my patience," Nightwing said.

"What are you idiots waiting for?" Mills snapped.

The wall of clearly well-paid muscle surged forward and Nightwing hurled Mills at them. While they were busy trying to catch her in a respectful manner, he mounted the desk again and used it as a stepping stone hop to the nearest shoulder and leap-frog his way across the room and out the door. He needed a little more breathing space so he could—

Oh. Oops.

The superintendant's office was on the second level. It opened onto a catwalk overlooking the main area of the plant, and the main area of the plant was currently crawling with more of what Nightwing had left in the office. Some of them looked like they'd been sampling what the treatment plant had been experimenting with, but of more immediate concern were the assault rifles many of them held.

_Here lies Nightwing,_ Nightwing thought bitterly as he dove out of the way of an experimental volley. Bullets pinged off the catwalk. _He was so busy looking for the Venom connections he missed the damn mob connections_. He shot a line into the rafters – bless these places, they always had rafters – and ducked into the shadows.

It wouldn't work for long. Mills seemed to be generous with her ammo allowance and her help had no compunctions about emptying whole clips into the ceiling indiscriminately. Nightwing needed to make a call: escape, or get into close quarters where the guns would be more hazard than help and finish what he'd come to do.

The call was made for him when someone got lucky. A bullet ricocheted and tore through his arm. The sudden shock of impact knocked him from his perch. He bit down on a scream as he fell and fired his grapnel to catch himself, but now he was a swinging target. Some of the gunmen were in the catwalks now, taking aim.

Nightwing let the line out and dropped rapidly, colliding with the knot of minions still on the floor, hoping their buddies wouldn't fire into the crowd. They converged on him immediately and Nightwing lost himself to the melee, striking and dodging on autopilot while his brain tried to see a way out.

Could he still extricate Mills from this mess? He thought he had enough evidence that the police would at least open an investigation and keep her in custody, but not enough to remove the others from play as well, especially not with most of Haven Pharm's records destroyed – unless he could prove the legitimacy of his own ill-gotten copy.

He aimed batarangs into the catwalks to take care of the shooters while he spun out of the way of the flailing limbs of what had essentially become a targeted mosh pit. His arm throbbed where the bullet had hit him. The whole limb would be useless for blocking soon. He had the uncharitable thought that maybe he should just _let_ Shade have them all instead of trying to save their asses with a fair trial and life in prison. Hopefully life in prison. Oh, hell, with these kind of connections it'd probably be a few years in prison, if that.

Can't think like that. Keep moving.

Was this getting easier?

He kicked out the back of one guy's knee and tossed him into three others when he dropped, then whirled around looking for the next target. But everyone was kind of standing back. Maybe they were giving up?

Or maybe they were making room for the big, Venom-dosed guy lumbering into the fight.

He wasn't as huge as Blockbuster and Nightwing had to hope he wasn't as skilled as Bane. Nightwing upped the electric current on his escrima sticks slightly and dodged out of the way of the guy's first clumsy strike. Slow. Good. He could handle this.

He dropped a few smoke bombs in case anyone still standing got any smart ideas about guns and plunged back into the fight, trying to angle the dance so he could make a clear escape back to Mills' office. He'd been keeping an eye on it this whole time, and unless she'd leapt out the shattered window she was still in there. He could still salvage this.


	6. Interlude with Ivy

When will fate next look in on Jason Todd? Will it be on this chill October night, when everything is grey and puddled, and Poison Ivy is once again free to stalk the city? Or will this be the moment fate turns away?

Either way, it is this night that matters, and it matters because of all the nights that mattered before it.

See, here: Jason, sick and miserable and huddled on the lee side of a stoop, having lost his nest weeks ago to children who bore their pain like weapons, who eased their own hurt by adding to his.

See, also: Pamela Isley, bundled firmly against the cold. She did not have any particular mischief in mind that night, or even for the coming weeks or months. Winter was a period of rest and renewal, when nature gathered its forces to burst forth in spring. Her parole officer would be very pleased with her model behavior. Right up until March.

Pamela – well, no. She thought of herself as Ivy, it must be said. Ivy was heading home to her warm apartment when, ahead, a shadow darted across the slate sky. The Bat, prowling. Ivy turned her steps without even thinking much about it. It was habit, avoiding Batman. Her new route took her down an alley she'd passed once before, months ago in the height of summer, an alley where a child had cried over the death of a plant.

Remembering this, she peered into the little nook, curious about how the tiny garden and the tiny gardener fared. At this season the plants should be dying back and she wondered how the child was taking it.

It was an idle whim, indulged because it was not far out of her way. But when she saw the remains of the little garden trampled, and different, older children occupying the space, and that one of them was wearing a bright red shirt with a hood, something stronger than curiosity took root.

She found him. Perhaps the dead plants told her where to look; perhaps she sensed their lingering presence on the hands that had cared for them, however futilely. Somehow, she found him, and she stared down at this shivering, dazed, fevered and flushed boy, and she decided.

There.

There is where it happened, where the river jumped its banks irrevocably. Until that exact moment, the stream of Jason Todd's life might still have vanished abruptly a few years later, swallowed by the sinkhole of an Ethiopian warehouse only to resurface in a graveyard in Gotham. But now… now fate must chart a new course, and Jason Todd's life runs with a new current.

Poison Ivy picked up the boy, who barely acknowledged this change in his disposition. She carried him home, up to her apartment, and laid him amongst the snake plants and the foxglove and the English ivy.

His skin was hot. His breath sounded wet deep in his chest. And he was wounded; at some point something or someone had breached the boundary of his skin and the resultant slash – a small one across his palm, as though he'd raised a hand to defend himself – was filthy and angry. Ivy could sense the decay in it, the death flowing directly into the boy's bloodstream.

Could Jason have recovered from this ailment without her interference? Perhaps. In another universe, in most other universes, he did, of course. We know this; we saw him sail along. Tires and cape, crowbar and grave, as you recall.

But here, in this life, Jason Todd is watched over by Poison Ivy, who finds herself in the unfamiliar position of wanting to care for a human child. She has no experience here. A plant, she would know how to save. A boy is not a plant.

Well. That is easily remedied. After all, it had happened to her, and she remembers.

The process is kinder for Jason. Ivy is not cruel, and she has neither desire nor need to hurt him. She understands better than any scientist ever had before her. For her, and for Jason, this is not an experiment: it is a procedure.

And so, when Jason wakes his chest does not hurt, and his hand does not hurt, and his head does not hurt. He is lying in a patch of warm sun and he is only a little thirsty and there is a pretty woman smiling down at him.

If he shades a bit green when he blushes, now, and if the white streak in his hair occasionally produces a fall of blossoms when his emotions get the better of him, well, what of it. He has Ivy to stroke the plants from his hair and put them in pots, to show him how to grow tall and unbent and strong; to teach him control – how to use his strength, and, more importantly, why.

Jason has a purpose, and he is fueled by love, and he is unstoppable.


	7. Chapter 4 & Coda

The last thing Dick remembered was falling. He'd escaped the melee leaving more groaning and sprawled bodies behind him than conscious ones, but in the end there were just too many. As he fled, body aching from countless hits, he witnessed Superintendent Mills making her getaway in a black Hummer. He'd flicked a tracker onto it and had been perched on the sill of the shattered office window about to pursue when something hit him from behind.

He fell, aware that he'd left too many enemies behind him and that if the ground didn't kill him, they would. He'd just thought he'd be fast enough. Maybe at the beginning of the night. Maybe if he'd slept the night before, or the night before that. At least he seemed likely to black out before he hit the ground. Small mercies.

The ground was a lot softer than it should be, though. And it smelled like sunshine, dryer sheets, and something sweet. Dick inhaled deeply before he realized he was on a bed, his head resting on a pillow. He opened his eyes and found morning light streaming through two windows and a skylight into an unfamiliar bedroom.

He was alone in the room, but the door was open and he could hear someone moving around beyond it. He took stock of himself quickly, unsure of how much time he had.

His mask was gone. That was a concern. Escrima sticks, too. Most of his suit seemed to be missing, in fact. He wasn't wearing his boots, and he was lying on the torn remains of the top half of the costume, leaving his arms and torso bare except for the careful bandage on one of his arms, and the ice pack (mostly melted) on the worst of the bruises on his ribs.

He could feel another bandage above his right eye and remembered flipping away from a punch only to whirl right into someone's knee. He was pretty sure they hadn't even been trying to hit him, it had just been that chaotic.

There was no point in cataloging all his pains. He was a solid bruise, every hit he'd taken blending into the others. But he could move, so that was the first step. He started by turning his head, looking down at his hand where it rested on pale green sheets. The black on his fingers stood out starkly. He curled them into a fist, hiding them.

The bed had a metal frame. Vining plants of some kind were crawling up it, twining through the thin rails of the headboard. They had clusters of tiny, bell-shaped flowers that seemed to be the source of the sweet scent Dick had noticed.

That was when it finally clicked. Shade. He had a hazy memory of the whorls of his mask, the green streak of his hair falling into his face as he bent over Nightwing. He must have… abducted him from the water treatment facility and… patched him up?

Dick shook his head. Was he drugged? He didn't feel drugged. If he was drugged he would _hope_ he'd be in less pain.

He shifted to the edge of the bed and stood, moving stiffly. The room was bright, airy, and altogether wholesome. It was painted a soft yellow and most of the furnishings were pale wood. There were plants on every available surface: succulents in small pots on the dresser, snake plants reaching for the ceiling in each corner, a riot of purple and white flowers with long stamens and dark green leaves trailing from baskets hung from hooks, more climbing flowers framing the door and windows…

Dick felt surrounded, yet, somehow, not threatened. He might be in a plant-themed villain's bedroom, but these plants just seemed like plants. Of course, if _he_ was a plant-themed villain that's just what he would want an injured, captured vigilante to think.

He tried to pull the top half of his suit back on, but between the pain in his arm from the ricocheted bullet, his ribs, and the state of the costume, it just wasn't possible. It looked like Shade had noticed the failsafes built into the obvious catches and clasps and had just decided to peel him like a banana rather than risk setting them off. Dick must have been really out of it for the time that would have taken – but then, he didn't remember the whole trip back here, either.

He went to the windows and looked out, figuring his position. The room was at the top of a tall building Dick didn't recognize, but he could see that they were near Melville Park. Not bad for a young supervillain.

Dick tied what was left of the arms of the suit around his waist in an effort to keep the bottom half in place. Most of his gear was gone so grappling away out the window wasn't an option, and he didn't fancy scaling the building in his current condition.

He eyed the open door of the bedroom, framed in flowers, and inched toward it. They didn't so much as rustle as he approached, so he peered out of the door, taking in the apartment at with a quick glance before ducking back into the room.

It was long and narrow, the floor plan open. The front door was to Dick's left in a sitting area with a low, grey couch, a mismatched armchair, stocked bookcases, and a modest television stuck in the corner almost as an afterthought. There were blankets tossed carelessly over the furniture, and an oversized blue throw pillow on the floor shoved halfway under a glass-topped coffee table.

The living room gave way to a dining area defined by a square table with a pine-finished top, green legs, and two chairs that matched. Two other chairs didn't. Dick's mask and escrima sticks were sitting on the table, his boots on the floor by one of the chairs.

And beyond that, at the far end of the apartment from the bedroom, the kitchen. Most of the cabinetry and appliances were on the back wall, which seemed to be brick where it peeked through. From how bright it was, Dick surmised the existence of a very large window, probably sliding doors letting onto a balcony. Most important, though, was the fact that Shade was standing in that kitchen, his back to Dick, surrounded by plants.

Well, there was nowhere in the apartment he _wouldn't_ be surrounded by plants. Like the bedroom, they covered every surface. Jasmine, philodendron, several varieties of ivy, and more and more that Dick couldn't name spilling from the bookcases, climbing the walls, lining the windowsills.

It was exactly as many plants as could fit without competing for sunlight. And somehow the smell wasn't overpowering; not all of the plants were flowering, but the ones that were should have been enough to be unpleasant all at once. Shade probably had something to do with that.

Shade, who had looked casual at the counter, wearing a loose pair of black sweats and a purple racerback tank top. Not exactly armor. And this wasn't exactly a lair. What was he _doing_?

There were a million questions arising from this scenario, and Dick wasn't leaving without either answers or shoes, so he figured making a start for one might net him the other.

He crept from the room.

Shade was still in the kitchen, talking to himself. Or, no, not himself. A vine that stretched across the tops of the cabinets and occasionally unfurled a tendril down to him. He batted it away every so often, like it was an underfoot cat.

"Stop that, you don't get a say in this," Shade said, almost slamming the refrigerator door on it. He poured himself a glass of water and had to literally hold the vine away from him while he took a drink. "Oh, fine," he said, and left it on the counter. The vine dipped into it once, then retreated, ignoring it. "Really? You just wanted it because I had it."

Dick was almost to the table and was reaching out for his escrima sticks when Shade turned. Dick froze.

Shade glowered, but not at him. He glared at all the plants lining the walls and the floors and the shelves. "What the fuck, you guys. Worst security system ever."

Dick still didn't move, hand hovering over the table, staring.

"All right, what _is_ it with you?" Shade demanded, crossing his arms. "Why do my plants like you so much? My vines grab onto you while we're fighting, they don't warn me when you wake up and sneak up behind me, and my mask has refused to grow since I brought you back here so who the fuck are you that they care so much?"

It was true that Shade's mask was nowhere in evidence. His arms were free of plant life. And the streak in his hair was no longer green, but pure white.

"I—" Dick started, then twitched his hand back, away from the weapons, curling it in close. His thumb ran over his blackened fingers in an involuntary twitch.

Shade's eyes tracked it and his face went still. Dick couldn't tear his eyes from his hair, obviously staring. Shade's hand rose as if to touch the white streak, then fell before he did, his mouth opening, then closing.

"They say you were Robin," Shade said at last, his voice low and rough, something hunted around his eyes.

"What's your name?" Dick asked instead of answering. It could be a trick. No one would know to trick him like this, but _it could be a trick_.

"I told you. Nightshade."

"No. The name of the boy. The one who ran errands for the bosses on his block, the boy who ran from Robin." Dick's fingertips were tingling. He wanted to vault the table, to touch, to prove.

Shade's body was a coiled spring. "I guess," he said eventually. "That if Batman had a file on me it would say Jason Todd."

"Jason," Dick breathed. "Jay. They called you Jay."

"Yeah, well, I wasn't gonna give my full name to a bunch of strangers, was I?"

"What _happened_ to you?" Dick asked. "We searched. We couldn't find you anywhere. A boy with a white streak in his hair from Crime Alley… it was like you fell off the planet. Was— was it Ivy? Did she get you before we—"

"Hey. Watch what you say about her. Ivy saved my damn life and that was years after I met you. You guys must just suck at finding people." There was no heat in it, just a calm statement of facts.

Dick moved around the table, weapons and gear forgotten for the moment. Jason watched him approach, eyes searching his but constantly flicking back down to his hand, hunger plain in his gaze.

"Can I?" Dick asked, raising his hand tentatively between them.

"Yeah," Jason whispered. He looked down, ducking his head just slightly.

Dick reached out and brushed the snowdrift of hair away from his face with the backs of his fingers, just as he had so many years ago. Jason's eyes closed and his chest expanded with a deep breath, while Dick stopped breathing altogether.

He let his hand drop and Jason lifted his eyes. Dick smiled, small and soft, and turned up his palm. A single pale pink blossom nestled there, layers of overlapping petals surrounding a bright yellow center. He offered it silently to Jason.

Jason took it gently. "Sorry," he said. "That… happens sometimes." His hair had streaked green for a moment when the blossom had unfurled, and now it was back to plain white.

"What is it?" Dick asked.

"Uh, camellia, looks like," Jason said. He set it in the glass of water. "Don't read too much into it."

"Into the camellia?"

"Yeah." The flower floating in the glass seemed to have captured all of Jason's attention, but Dick picked up slightly quicker breathing that Jason was clearly trying to get under control.

"Okay. Do you want to talk about the fact that we're soulmates?" _About the fact that touching you sent a bolt of fire straight up my arm, my God, it was like the Nightwing stripes were painted on me in lightning, did you feel it, did you feel even a fraction of—_

"I'm not going to stop."

"Stop?" Dick echoed. _Why would I want you to stop?_

"Haven Pharm. The treatment plant, the food lab, all those fuckers. I'm not going to stop going after them just because we— because you're— this doesn't change anything," Jason said.

"Doesn't change— bullshit," Dick said. "You saved my life. You brought me into your _home_. Before you even knew."

"Only because it was my fault you ended up in that situation," Jason said. "I know you were rushing things trying to beat me to the punch. You're just lucky I was keeping an eye on the plant. Mills might deserve to get her head smashed in for what she's doing, but you don't."

"They _deserve _to be brought to justice. To be made an example."

"Heads on pikes make pretty good examples, Wing," Shade spat.

"And what if there's more?" Dick asked, refusing to back down and, in fact, stepping closer. "There needs to be an investigation, an official one. Sure, you found the people trying to use the Venom, to profit off it, but how did it get here? Who's supplying it? Is it being manufactured here? Imported? We can't just treat the surface problem or the real contamination will just bury itself deeper."

"You can play detective all you like _after_ we stop the immediate issue, which is that the literal ground Bludhaven is built on is being _poisoned_," Jason argued, pulling himself up to his full height which gave him _just_ enough to look down at Dick.

"What about the victims, then? The people who got the bad drugs Haven Pharm was experimenting with, the bad food, the bad water, the… whatever the hell they were doing with the sneakers?" Dick's hands fisted at his sides. He and Jason were practically on top of each other, Jason deliberately looming, and it was an effort not to shove him, show him that he wasn't intimidated by Jason's size. "The victims deserve recompense and they'll only get it through legal action. Burying buildings and bodies doesn't leave them with anything."

Jason took a seething breath and then, to Dick's surprise, stepped back. "All right, you might have some points. _Maybe_. But I'm not talking about this with you until you put a shirt on."

"Excuse me?"

"You're distracting," Jason growled, pushing past Dick and heading back to the bedroom. Dick blinked, then grinned and followed him, only to be met with a shirt to the face as Jason threw one through the door at him. This was followed by a pair of pajama pants. "Can't imagine the spandex is particularly comfortable after a whole night in it," he said with a shrug and pointed out the bathroom for Dick to get changed.

When Dick emerged a few minutes later – longer than it should have taken since he'd forgotten, in the euphoria of finding his soulmate (and immediately picking a fight with him), that he'd been sort of shot, beaten, and pushed out a window in the not too distant past and his injuries were tired of being ignored – Jason had set a large glass of water, a mug of tea, and a BLT on toast on the coffee table.

"Sit," he ordered, pointing at the couch. The bottoms of the pajamas dragged a little, and the Gotham Knights t-shirt was too large as well, but given the state of Dick's ribs that was probably a good thing. He sat meekly, Jason watching his every stiff movement with narrowed eyes. "We have two nights before the big meeting with our current batch of idiots," he began, then frowned at Dick. "That sandwich isn't just for decoration."

"I'm not going to sit here and eat while you pace. I'll get a crick in my neck looking up at you."

Jason huffed and dropped into the armchair. "Better?"

"Yes. You want half of this?"

"I eat sunlight."

Dick almost choked on his water. "Are you serious?"

Jason rolled his eyes. "No. Well sort of. It's complicated. Anyway, no, I don't want half of that, I would have made my own damn sandwich if I wanted one. You haven't eaten since before you went out last night. Trust me, you need the whole thing."

"How do you know when the last time I ate was?"

"I've been watching you, you moron."

"You… what, even at home? You knew who I was this whole time?" Dick asked, feeling faintly scandalized. The frisson of panic at giving away his identity – and all the other people that would compromise – was distant.

"Not the _whole_ time. I only found you yesterday afternoon. I got lucky; there's a linden tree on your block that knows your smell." Dick stared at him and Jason gestured vaguely. "Not _smell_, I guess, it's a little more… there isn't really a word for it. Anyway, yeah, the tree gave you away. It's not really something I'd worry about most people figuring out. Although." He looked down at his hands. "I mean, I don't expect you to, I guess, but a name would be nice. If we're going to work together."

Dick grinned at him. "Are we going to work together?"

"I have some conditions. The first is that you eat that sandwich."

Dick took a large bite. The thought of poisons and toxins had crossed his mind, but if his soulmate wanted to hurt him like that… well, he should probably find that out now. But all he got was a mouthful of bacon, lettuce, and tomato.

Jason nodded. "Okay. I'm thinking, we can try it your way. _But_," he said, holding up a hand to forestall Dick's pleased exclamations. "The second any of them walk, or wiggle out of it, or default on a medical payment, all bets are off. No second chances. I take what's owed."

Dick thought it over. "By taking what's owed, you mean…?"

"I'll make sure they never hurt anyone again. I'll destroy whatever's left of their businesses, and then I'll execute them."

Dick sighed. "I can't condone killing," he said. "Not in my city."

"Then you can hope the system works. Or that they get out of town before I catch up with them."

Dick's hand went to his mouth, fingers moving across his lips again, that old habit. He thought of Wonder Woman, of Donna, of Kori. He nodded slowly. "All right." Then he noticed Jason's eyes, fixed on his fingers where they met his lips. He smiled and dropped the hand. "Do you really not know my name?"

"It's not like you walk around introducing yourself to trees," Jason said. Dick wondered if he'd licked his lips consciously.

"Dick Grayson," Dick said, since Jason apparently needed to hear it out loud.

"That's your name?" Jason asked.

"That's my name."

"Thanks for telling me. Dick," Jason said. Dick's skin gave a pleasant little shiver at hearing his name in Jason's mouth.

"You don't seem… surprised," Dick said.

"At your name? It's a little old fashioned, but I wouldn't call it particularly surprising."

"You've never heard the name Dick Grayson before?" Dick asked, not entirely certain how to take that.

"It kind of sounds vaguely familiar. Why, is he somebody famous?"

"Not that famous, apparently," Dick said. "Never mind. Google it later. We need to figure out how to clean up this Venom conspiracy."

They planned. They plotted. They compared notes and resources, dredged up evidence and anecdotes and went after the roots of the conspiracy. They were deep, deeper than even Jason had known. Dick had suspected, once he'd started digging, but he hadn't had time to build anything properly resembling a web of who was involved.

They did so now. The big meeting was tomorrow night, but now that Jason was on his side, Dick felt no rush. Let them have their meeting; they could bug it and use it for recon if they had to. Jason would prefer to wrap it up then and there, though, and if they could they would.

A strategy began to take shape. A few weak points in the organizations to lean on, a few good detectives Dick knew, a few victims Jason knew who would be willing to testify.

Lunch time came and went. They ate while they planned, sitting across from each other at Jason's little kitchen table. Jason might claim to eat sunlight, but apparently he ate sandwiches too, and brought snacks and drinks over to the coffee table when they moved back to the couch and armchair.

Over the course of their planning, other details began to emerge, as well. Jason had been living in Bludhaven almost a full year. He hadn't been _planning _on going all eco-terrorist, but as the contamination from the companies involved began to leach into the soil he began to feel it, and so did the local plant life. He couldn't stand by.

"It's lucky I caught you," Dick said with a grin.

Jason rolled his eyes. "Who caught who, exactly? I had you on the ropes."

"I guess we'll never know!" Dick said brightly. "But why did you move here in the first place?"

"Why did _you_?" Jason countered.

Dick shrugged. "Well part of it was to try and get myself to stop obsessing over my lost soulmate. Which turned out to be a good decision," he said with a raised eyebrow in Jason's direction. Jason rolled his eyes at him. "But mostly it was Batman. Getting out from under his wing. It's a very large wing, and it's dark under there. Bludhaven looked like it needed my help."

"Kind of the same for me," Jason said. "Except I never really realized…" He tugged lightly at the white part of his hair. "I mean, I sort of suspected, but I didn't know so I just didn't think about it. But I did need to spread out on my own, and I needed to get out of Ivy's way. She's been afraid to tangle with the Bat since she had me to protect," he said. "She didn't want him to find out about me and take me away, or toss me in Arkham just because of…" He gestured at the plant life all around them. A cord of climbing jasmine had crept out from somewhere and was curled affectionately around his ankle. A cluster of yellow poppies on the bookshelf behind them had turned their blossoms to face him.

"Oh," Dick said. He wanted to also say _He wouldn't_, or _I would never let that happen_, but when faced with the same situation Dick had been faced with meeting Nightshade, he doubted Batman would have been careless or hasty enough to accidentally find out about his soulmate status in the first place.

"Yeah, so I kind of took off to enable my supervillain mom to get back to her villainy. Sorry," Jason said with a shrug. "For what it's worth, I think Harley's softening her up a little."

"Harley and Ivy? That's not reassuring at all," Dick said.

"They're a surprisingly good influence on each other. Maybe it's a soulmate thing," he said. His eyes moved, as they had so many times that day, to Dick's fingers. Dick didn't mind. He'd been staring at Jason's hair plenty, himself.

Dick cleared his throat. "We need to iron out a few more details," he said. "Tell me how you know this Mrs. Alvarez will be willing to testify…"

They went over it all again and again, shoring up weak angles and nailing down details. Jason had a fine eye for contingencies and potential wiggle room for their intended targets, and Dick had the connections and experience with the justice system he lacked.

Dick's body was sending a constant stream of complaints at him while they worked, but he knew there was nothing he could do about it. No matter how he sat or lay or stood, he'd be in pain. So he ignored it. A day of quiet planning in soft, comfortable clothes on a soft, comfortable couch was probably much better than he would normally have treated his injuries, anyway.

Afternoon wore on. There were breaks to water the plants, for more food, for pacing. Jason eventually joined Dick on the couch, occupying the same space as a bright patch of sunlight for a few hours, until it began to move up the wall. Jason stayed where he was, though.

When they'd finally been able to run through the plan twice without having to make any changes, the last of the sun was leaving the sky.

"I don't think we can do anything more tonight," Jason said. "Right?"

"Not that I can see." Even if there was, Dick knew he was at the limits of what he could wring out of his brain in one sitting. And the amount of self-control it had taken to make it this long without getting completely distracted—

"Oh, thank God," Jason said. "Being responsible sucks ass." He grabbed Dick's hand, the one with the marked fingers, turning on the couch cushion so he faced him. "Tell me this is okay," he said, pulling Dick's hand to his lips and kissing his fingers.

The kiss was an oddly formal gesture, curious and courtly. Dick felt his face heating as though Jason had just asked for permission to bend Dick over the arm of the couch and make him scream Jason's name, rather than for this simple, reverent gesture.

"Yeah," Dick managed.

"Touching you is all I've been able to think about for the last hour."

"Just the last hour for you?" Dick laughed.

"What can I say, I'm a dedicated justice-planner-person." Jason's lips lingered on a knuckle. Dick curled his free hand around the back of Jason's neck, pulling him closer, and replaced his marked fingers with his mouth.

Jason pressed forward, pushing Dick back so he was resting against the armrest. Dick hummed his pleasure and pulled his legs onto the couch, laying himself out under Jason.

Jason leaned back and looked down at him, nodding once in approval. "I think I'd like my shirt back now," he said.

"You couldn't have told me that before I laid down?" Dick grumbled.

"I'll help." Jason tugged at the hem of the shirt. "Can you lift your arms?"

"Can I— I am one of the best acrobats in the _world_, yes I can lift my arms," Dick said, determinedly not showing how much it hurt even to sit up slightly so that Jason could pull the shirt the rest of the way up. He was just stiff. From all the bruising. And the bullet wound.

Jason tossed the shirt on the coffee table and leaned close. Instead of kissing him, though, he ghosted his lips over Dick's cheek and whispered, "Turn over."

"Jason—" Dick started, something in his brain screaming _slow down_ while something else yelled, just as enthusiastically, _soulmate!! _

"I'll make it worth your while," Jason promised, voice soft. "And if I do anything you don't like I'll stop the second you say the word." He pulled back, examining Dick's face and allowing Dick to do the same to him.

Dick searched his eyes and found nothing but sea green, lovely and guileless and perfect for drowning in. He reached up and touched the white of Jason's hair with the tips of his marked fingers and shivered as his skin pricked with the feeling of connection, of belonging. Jason blinked slowly, his exhale a little harsh, but didn't move to touch Dick or try to encourage him any further.

Dick nodded, finally, and Jason rose up on his knees so that Dick could turn underneath him. He settled on his stomach, arms crossed in front of him to pillow his head, trying to ignore the burn of abused back muscles at the stretch. That was where he'd taken most of the hits last night, it felt like. Each bruise was its own lamp, a hot, steady flame that showed no sign of dimming yet.

Jason's fingertips traced up his spine, brushed lightly against the planes of his shoulder blades as if mapping them. Dick felt the cushions shift as Jason redistributed his weight for more stability and so that he wasn't crushing Dick's legs. There was a gentle clink, like glass on glass, and Dick was about to sneak a peek over his shoulder when Jason's hands returned to his skin, running confidently over his ribs.

Sudden coolness bloomed where he touched and Dick couldn't help the groan that escaped him a second later. He dropped his forehead to his crossed arms as Jason rubbed gentle circles over his bruises, his hands sliding easily as a light floral scent rose around him.

"Told you it'd be worth it," Jason said, sounding far too pleased with himself.

"What _is_ that?"

"My take on Tiger Balm. Why, what did you think I was going to do?" Jason asked innocently.

"Nothing as good as this." Jason's fingers pressed a little more firmly into one of Dick's shoulders, finding not a bruise but a knotted muscle. Dick's voice broke from him like a wave crashing over jagged rocks.

"Yeah, we'll see about that. Sometime when you can actually move, though," Jason said. He leaned close and kissed the back of Dick's neck. "I want to see exactly what one of the best acrobats in the world can do in peak condition."

Dick swore into the couch cushions. If he'd thought Nightshade was dangerous, that was nothing compared to Jason Todd.

Dick stayed the night.

_Coda _

Was it fate that brought Jason Todd back into Dick Grayson's life? Did fate give the two a nudge, soften their meeting, shove Dick out of a window and into Jason's arms? Or did fate see that Jason had slipped through its fingers and abandon all plan for the young man's life (and death), leaving this mated pair entirely on their own to make of life what they will?

Jason does not know. Nor does Dick. Neither is particularly wondering about it at the moment, for they have more important things on their mind, namely:

The satisfying recoil and catch of a line letting Nightwing down into the midst of a conspiracy meeting in ruins.

The delicious expression on several criminal faces when they realize how thoroughly they've been caught.

The crunch of bone and cartilage as they – or, their hired help – try to fight back anyway.

The way Nightwing looks when he dances through a melee, not a foot out of place.

The way Nightshade looks threshing a path through the crowd, fighting his way to Nightwing's side.

The faltering and break of the tide as a fight turns to a rout.

The net of red and blue lights in place, of _everything_ in place, of every plan and contingency slotting together to form an unbreakable wall.

These people are going to jail and, looking at Nightwing, triumphant in the aftermath as they watch from a nearby rooftop while the authorities take things in hand, Jason lets himself believe that they'll stay there. That they'll see justice.

That maybe, just maybe, there could be something to this partnership thing.

Then Nightwing looks over at him, flushed from the fight and grinning like a sunrise, and Jason doesn't need to wonder or believe or question anymore.

He _knows_.

**Author's Note:**

> Hayashi_Jazmin's prompt asked for a soulmates AU where Poison Ivy had adopted Jason, with Jason being a villain with Ivy's powers and Dick being Nightwing. I do hope this satisfied! Thank you again for giving me such wonderful prompts to choose from!


End file.
